Hitherto, a saponified ethylene-vinyl ester copolymer resin (hereinafter, sometimes referred to as EVOH resin) has a very strong intermolecular force due to a hydrogen bond between hydroxy groups present in the polymer side chain. Therefore, since the crystallinity is high and further the intermolecular force is high even in the amorphous portion, gas molecules and the like are hard to pass through the EVOH resin and a film using the EVOH resin exhibits an excellent gas barrier property.
By utilizing the excellent gas barrier property, the EVOH resin is used by being molded into a film or sheet for a food packaging material, a pharmaceutical packaging material, an industrial chemical packaging material, an agricultural chemical packaging material or the like, or a container, for example, a bottle.
The EVOH resin is generally distributed in a pellet state and at the time of transport of the EVOH resin pellet, it is usually packaged, for example, in kraft paper moisture-proofed with an aluminum inner bag or the like.
For example, as a method for producing EVOH resin pellet according to a strand cutting method, a method of cutting a strand-like material (continuous rod-like body) obtained by extruding the resin solution from dies into a coagulating liquid to allow for deposition or cutting a strand-like material obtained by extruding the resin molten by heating to allow cooling and solidifying, by using a strand cutter into pellets of certain size is proposed (see, for example, Patent Document 1).